


devil boy

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Angst, Boys In Love, Drag Queens, Drugs, F/M, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Italian Tony Stark, Jewish Howard Stark, M/M, Maria Stark's Bad Parenting, Origin Story, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-04-23 16:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19154860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: Tony Stark’s life before he was Iron-Man, and as he becomes Iron-Man. He wasn't always a hero, in fact, he was almost the devil.





	1. origin

  
  


He is the devil, Tony thinks, looks at the glass in his hand.

 

He is the devil, he has to be. Only the devil can do what he does.

 

Only the devil could revel in explosions in the special kind of way he does, more than just pyromania. He watches them billow, watches them spread and burn and fly and can only think, _nice job. these'll go great for next months line._ He knows what they do to people. He's seen it. He knows what _he_ does to people, He just doesn't care. Starks were never bred to care, after all

 

Only the devil can drink and fuck and move from girl to girl like he does. He forgets their names, usually, but sometimes he remembers, wonders if his life was a bit different, if her life was a bit different, if they would maybe fall in love. If he wasn't who he was and she wasn't another skinny blonde girl looking for something — money, fame, a diamond ring  — in all the wrong places, they might get married in the same church his parents did and have a kid and live out the kind of life he will never have.

 

But the devil can't love, everyone knows that.

 

He wonders where he get it from, if it was his mother or his father. He doesn't know either very well, so it’s hard to tell. Rich people don't have time for children, really. They have time for them at press events, and when it matters, but daily life is for the nannies to deal with.

 

It must be his father. Surely, with that grin he used to see in the newspaper early on Saturday, even through paper, it seemed...too shiny. Too big and bright and fake. Everything about Howard was fake. Sometimes when he was small, he’d walk past his office, he’d be talking to people on the phone in a language he doesn't know, and one that Howard’s not supposed to. Nobody knew where he was from, really. Nobody knew about the big family and the little walk-up in Brooklyn, about the holidays he celebrated and the meat he did and didn't eat. After a while, those phone calls stopped. Tony always wondered who was on the other end, why they stopped. Why they called in the first place.

 

Then again, his mother might be the problem. Brown and poor and female, she was always disadvantaged, but she was smart. She stole her way onto a ship, and then into money and jewels and dresses, somewhere someone of her class shouldn't be. He remembers the odd times he would see her, just come home from a night of dancing and laughing and drinking, boneless and giggly, eyelashes fluttering, lipstick smeared sometime in the car ride over. She would croon senseless words to him, mutter Italian and swing him around and around in her arms when he was still young enough. Encounters with her always left him feeling dizzy, like a tornado had just swept through. She was dangerous like that. She set off alarm bells in your head.

 

Ana and Edwin raised him, it has to be genetic, because it's not them. No. They were _perfect_. 

 

Ana loved to sew, and cook badly, and she was witty, and quick with her tongue. All of Tony's memories of her are tinged with smoke and coloured with her lying on the couch, making Edwin shake his head. Oh, Edwin. 

 

Edwin was kind, above all. He was gentlemanly and inspirational and liked to help people. He taught him many things, most of which he doesn't use today. He learnt _those_ things from his father. Still, if he ever needs to pilot a boat or tie a dozen knots or survive in the wild or do the heimlich, he’ll be fine. He was into the boy scouts, and since he couldn't do it, being _Howard Stark’s son and did you know his mother is a whore_ and _I heard his father doesn't even live at home and he’s trouble that one, he has to be. Devil boy, devil boy._

 

So, they ran a little scout group at home on Fridays. With only him and Jarvis and occasionally Ana. It wasn't the same, but Tony’s best memories are spent there, heads bent together, sitting in their little hut, twisting rope together in knots he can still tie.

 

He remembers sailing with, down the river on the creaky little sailboat they hammered together for weeks. He can still feel the grain of the wooden paint brush against his fingers as he traced in big bold letters, wobbly but strong,  _FRIDAY._ The day the group run. the day he go to be some semblance of normal, he grew out of that desire pretty soon. _FRIDAY_ sprung a massive leak, of course, and ended up capsizing about seven minutes in, but in those seven minutes, with Jarvis telling him what ropes to pull to catch the wind and to bail out water and making jokes, that was the highlight of his summer — of his year, really.

 

He didn't have many friends as a kid. He didn't really have anyone. Who would want to be friends with the devil? Ana always told him it was just because he was special — richer, _smarter_. Different. He never quite believed her, but always swallowed them with ease, chose to believe.

 

Now, he’s 23 and his parents are dead. So is Jarvis, and Ana has been since she had cancer fall of ‘88. Rhodey is off on deployment because he wants to fight for America and shoot guns and be patriotic, Obie wants to do the same thing but not for America, for the company, so he’s alone. He should be used to it by now but he’s not.

 

He doesn't think he'll ever get used to it.

 


	2. women

The women are a special kind of poison, Tony thinks. Maybe better than the drinks, better than the drugs, after all, you can't 'OD on them, although sometimes he wishes he could, if he could slice open his skin on their smile, drink their eyes like cyanide, wrap a noose around his throat from their hair. But, you can't kill yourself on women. 

 

He learns that though trial and error. 

 

He meets a girl in California, on one of his unplanned trips there. 

 

In California, they meet at some house party of a person he barely knows and make out next to the pool for a good half an hour. A week later, he calls her from the number scrawled on the back of his hand, and they they walk on the beach and eat burgers, fries and milkshakes in an, all-American, cheap diner and when they’re done and the sky is dusky purple, nearly black, the only thing illuminating the dark the lingering fire of the sunset lighting up the horizon, they walk on the beach again.

 

She pushes him or he pushes her and she reliatates or maybe he just trips but either way, he’s soaking wet and sandy and choking on salt water because he’s laughing too hard.

 

They mess around and get wet and soon they’re soaked and shivering so they stagger up the beach, find a street and eventually a cab, get back to his apartment smack dab in the city. They shower and fall in bed, get tangled in the sheets, fall asleep on the balcony as the sun rises over the horizon. She murmurs into his shoulder as dawn passes that he should get a house next to the sea. He doesn't say anything back.

 

She leaves in the morning, and he calls her again.

 

"Hey, it's Tony, from the other night. I was wondering if you wanted to hang again."

 

"Oh..."

 

“What is it?”

 

“I’m sorry. You’re just…” she hesitates, doesn't know what to say, “not...boyfriend material.”

 

“What am I, then?”

 

 “Oh, boy,” and she sounds so terribly sad. “Baby, baby boy. You just don't know it, do you?”

 

“Know what?” he asks, takes one more step towards his guillotine. She is the executioner.

 

"I don't wanna be near you when you implode."

 

"I'm not --"

 

She laughs. "What were you high on that night?" she waits a moment, but he just looks at her. "You can't answer, can you?

 

 _Devil boy, devil boy,_ his mind taunts. He only stares and stares, the confrontation of who — what — he is the most dizzying headrush he’s ever had.

 

She's right. She's right. He doesn't care past the drink in his hand and the next party. He's the evil of the world, a rich white playboy without a care in the world past his dick and his bank account. 

 

After that, he’s not really sure. He guesses it sends him off the deep end, judging by how many missed calls he has from his publicist.

 

He can’t find it in himself to care. Boyfriend material would probably care, right?

 

Some small part of him, the one that likes to whisper, laughs. 

 

 ~~D~~ evil boy, ~~d~~ evil boy.


	3. ty.

  
  


The first time he kisses a guy Ty is laughing, rolling a joint on the dresser. They're in his flat, in his bedroom, the curtains are closed and his bed is messy, strewn with blankets and pillow and some girl’s bra. It midday, they just woke up and sleep is still blanketing his limbs. Tony thinks he could live in this moment.

 

“Yeah. that girl was crazy though. What was she? Italian? Or Spanish?”

 

“...French?” he guesses, not really caring.

 

Ty laughs, finishes his join, taps out a line, “nah, man. No way.”

 

“I’m telling you,” Tony sighs, rolls over like a cat, stretches out, stares at the ceiling.

 

Ty only hums, leans down, snorts the bump.

 

He groans, tips backwards, trust-falling onto the duvet. He wipes his nose as he asks, grinning, “Want one?”

 

He really is so...Pretty, Tony thinks in that moment. In a way not many people are, recklessly, maybe. Grinning and wide. He reminds him of bright, white stadium lights and driving late at night and timeless places like gas station and grocery aisles and school after three pm.

 

“Tony?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I was gonna ask if you wanted a line, but you look like you’ve already had enough.”

 

“Nah, nah, gimme one,” he argues, pushes himself up, blinks the daze out of his eyes.

 

“Alright, fine. If you OD’d, it’s not on me.”

 

“I won't. I'm sober.”

 

Ty just shrugs. Shuffles back to let him snort it.

 

He comes back up, waits for the buzz to flood his senses. He exhales a long hard breath when it hits, then rubs his nose.

 

“Good, hey?”

 

“Better than your usual crap. New dealer?”

 

“Yeah. Got a hook-up straight out of Columbia.”

 

Tony only hums. It's hot, in the room. He’s still drunk from last night, he thinks.

 

He looks at Ty for a long, long moment. He’s gonna do something real stupid.

 

The kiss is rushed, hot and heavy and almost like a mistake, even before it’s done.

 

He draws back, quick enough to see Ty’s reaction.

 

He blinks, twice, then lunges forward and puts his mouth on Tony’s with everything he has, which is quite a lot.

 

“I think she was Greek,” Tony whispers against his lips. He feels the huff of Ty’s laugh on his lips.

 

“Maybe,” Ty murmurs back, “but I don’t particularly care, at the moment.”

 

* * *

  
  


“Here, baby,” Ty whispers, even though they can be as loud as they like. He uncaps the lipstick, tilts Tony’s head back. They’re in his room, it’s dark, the curtains are closed, they’re home from a night out (every night is a night out) and Tony’s tired down to his bones.

 

“What you doin’?” he mumbles.

 

"Lipstick. Someone left it. Don't worry, it's your colour."

 

There’s silence for a long moment, but then Tony closes his eyes from where they had been drifting open and slumps his head back on the pillow.

 

Ty grins, victorious and draws it over his lips. It’s red, so red, and makes him look like sin.

 

“How’s it look?” Tony asks when he’s done, lips curving into a smile.

 

“Beautiful, baby,” Ty breathes.

 

The next night, they don't go out.

* * *

 

Lipstick in the middle of the night turns into something more. Something uncontrollable. “You got a name?” Ty asks, watching from the bed. "All the drag queens have names."

 

“Carbon Maria,” Tony says, admiring himself in the mirror. He doesn't look so perfect-image now. 

 

“Nice. Where’s it from?”

 

“My mom.”

 

“Less sexy now,” Ty jokes.

 

Tony turns around and smacks him. “You're a dumbass.”

 

“Yeah, dumb for you,” Ty coos.

 

Tony laughs. “You’re dumb for anything, because you're just dumb.”

 

“Real mean.”

 

“What else would I be?”

 

“I really don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes this is their relationship why


	4. breakup

 

They break up a year later, it's not because of anything, really, although there must be something, but he can't really remember anymore. He barely notices it happening and then it hits him like a sucker punch to the gut. 

 

He forgot the devil can’t love. How _silly_ of him. 

 

He spends all day in bed, only leaving to shower and sometimes eat and get drunk. Everytime he tries for a rebound, for a empty fuck, he feels like throwing up — and actually does, once, that's embarrassing. 

 

Rhodey comes home, and that helps, but he still feels sick to his stomach when he thinks about him. About them. 

 

About morning when they would wake up, tired, bones cracking, joints popping, moving in one sleepy mass towards the kitchen where they would work in sync, Tony starting the coffee, Ty the toast, Tony grabbing the jam and milk from the fridge, Ty the butter and cups. They eat in silence, just between slurps and crunches, but they're always touching, shoulders knocking together, feet tangled, knees touching. 

 

About the sheer _fun_ they would have, making trouble at those house parties where you simultaneously know everyone and no one. They would play pranks and stage fights with each other to cause drama and then run and run until they’re breathless and away from the lights and music and into the dark where the air tastes like the sweetest fucking thing on earth. 

 

They'd go to drag shows and Toy would wear lipstick and sunglasses and no one cared enough to see who he was. 

 

About the way Ty would kiss him, sometimes, slow and sweet and like whatever they are actually means something.

 

Eventually, eventually, he feels better. It’s not much, but it’s there. He goes to a party, he smiles at Obie when he comes around, he and Rhodey road-trip to California and end up staying there for a while. He likes the sun. 

 

* * *

  
  
  


People look at him different after that, he thinks he’s changed. His spine has straightened, his code has been rewritten. He’s less scared about his sexuality. He kisses boys with the door open now, he doesn't hide behind it, behind the closest door. It certainly isn't open, but it might be cracked. 

 

He agrees with those people, whispering, He’s different now, changed. He’s callous and caustic and...he’s okay with that. That old Tony Stark, he got hurt. This new one? He doesn't. He’s a shield as well as a sword. His armour is the best in the world because no one even knows it’s armour. 

 

He still feels too small for his body, sometimes. He drowns in his skin, in the heartbeat thudding in his ears. He thinks if he stops fighting, he could just submerge, into the Tony Stark and who he has become, into layers and layers of charm and smiles and suits and even though the hot, hot LA sun is bearing down, he doesn't take it off. There's a back door there, when the night comes but the temperature doesn't drop, he can maybe shed a business sweater or two, become the playboy everyone expects by now. 

 

 _He_ expects it by now. 

 

The tabloids whisper, the people do too. He doesn't mind it. There have been whispers in his life since he was a child and his mother was a whore and he was trouble and his father didn’t live at home. 

 

Since he was the devil.


	5. pepper

 

He has a new assistant. 

 

The idea is not new. He drives them off every couple weeks, sometimes less. It’s rare for one to stay more than a month, yet here she is. Virginia Potts, three months strong. 

 

 _it’s a miracle,_ people tell him. Mostly Rhodey. That man is too invested in his well being, honestly. 

 

She tells him to go to his meetings and actually makes him, for once. He gets more done in three months than he ever had in six. 

 

Obie laughs about it, Rhodey marvels, and Tony wonders who this new queen of hell is that can make him do anything.

 

“Delivery for you, Mr. Stark,” Pepper calls, stepping inside his lab in her dizzying heels. She doges a stray wench and steps over part of a car engine on her way towards him on his workbench. He’s still vaguely drunk from last night, so he just takes a slurp from his (Irish) coffee and beckons her over. He always gets mellow when he’s drunk. 

 

“It’s the new contracts, I believe.”

 

“Oh, awesome,” he says, reaches out for them. He nearly falls off his chair and Pepper narrows her eyes suspiciously. 

 

“Are you drunk?”

 

“...Not from today?”

 

She sighs, heavy. “Just...sign these, it’s not like you haven’t closed deals while under the influence before.”

 

“I’ve never done it without,” he says. “It’s good luck.”

 

“Bad luck for your liver, more like.”

 

Tony just shrugs.

 

She drops them next to him with a pen and makes her way back to the doors. 

 

“Pepper?” he calls, right as her hands is poised over the keypad. 

 

“Yes, Mr. Stark?”

 

“What do you think of me?”

 

“What?” she asks even though she's heard.

 

“What's your opinion on what I do, who I am, how I act, the fact I’m drunk at 11am?” He says it matter of fact, turns over the pen in his fingers as he waits. 

 

Pepper looks shell-shocked, she blinks, opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again: “I think...I think you've been though a lot. I think you've built these wall and become this person, when really, you’re... _kind_. You're a good person, Tony. Even if your company sells guns."

 

He’s silent, watching her. 

 

“Is that all, Mr. Stark?” she says finally. 

 

“That's all, Ms. Potts," he says, goes back to getting drunk and smiling and pretending he's alright. 

 

* * *

 

Sometimes he still whispers, under his breath, _the sailboat sank, the sailboat sank._ It’s like a mantra, sort of. A reminder. A punishment. Some strange kind of cynical joke. Pepper hears, once. She looks at him strangely but doesn’t ask. 

 

She doesn't ask about lots of things, like how he spends more time at home than apparent. When the newspapers the next day say he was in _Sweden_ , of all places, rather than in the workshop at Malibu, and he doesn't even bother disputing it. Just laughs when he was ‘spotted’ cuddling with an ex he never even went out with.

 

She doesn't ask how he stumbles in with a...friend, making out heatedly until the door closes and the flashes of photographs die off. They separate, each straightening their clothes, and say hi to her. She stares, still locked in position, as they go to the bar, chatting easily, no hint of lust anywhere to be seen. 

 

She doesn't ask about the sleepless nights and the empty pots of coffee. Just orders more of his special Jamaican Blue Mountain blend that costs more than he should really pay for something he doesn't even taste half the time. He's glad. 

 

She doesn't ask about the raise he gives her after she turns Ty away from the door, says, _he's busy_ to Obie and arranges Rhodey to come for a ‘meeting’ whenever he’s been lying in bed, almost comatose for weeks. 

 

She doesn't ask about how the tabloids whisper ‘bipolar’ and ‘alchoholic’. Even Rhodey mentions it, almost shyly. Tony waves him off. He doesn't need his concern. He’s fine. He’s always been fine, and he always will be.

 

The devil is fine. _He_ is fine. 


	6. iron man, the final chapter

He's in a cave. It’s dirty and _cold_ but wait — there's a _hole_ in his _chest_. 

 

It's not the worst thing that's happened to him, he doesn't think. This time he at least has someone, even if that person’s name is Ho and he shaves with a broken piece of metal and a cracked mirror nailed to a post. 

 

They play some game he doesn't remember learning the rules to, and as they chuckle over the board, another win to him, or to Yinsen, he doesn't really remember. It's all tinted with rose glasses, even if they’re smudgy with, y’know, _dirt_ , because they’re in a _cave_. 

 

Yinsen has a family that he will see when he leaves here, Tony...the devil doesn't have a welcome party planned for him. 

 

He thinks to himself, and then says, “no.” It's half life, half truth.

 

“Who were they?” Yinsen asks, because he seems to know. Tony wonders if he’s really an all-knowing god from some old, forgotten religion. He seems to have a gleam in his eye that tells him he’s right. Maybe he’s just delirious from fever. 

 

He shrugs, “Ana, Edwin. Ty. Mama.”

 

“What were they like?”

 

“I loved them. Not sure if they all loved me. Not sure if they really could.” Who could love a devil-boy?

 

There's a long beat of silence. “I bet they did, Stark.”

 

“I’m hard to love. I’m… too much,” he says, like one of the many truths of the world. “It’s tiring. Most didn’t make it too long, Mama was the longest, and,” he sighs, heavy, like all the sins he’s ever committed, “I hardly saw her.”

 

“Your parents died when you were twenty-one, didn't they? That must have been...challenging.”

 

Tony shrugs again, to be honest, he thinks he might die in this cave. It's far from the death he had expected, high to the stars and drunk on whiskey, but still a Gatsby end. Tragic and sad and slightly longing. He may as well tell the truth now. “Ah, some of them. Ana died earlier, but Mama and Jarvis went with Howard, I guess.”

 

Yinsen nods along, resets the board. “Ty?” he asks finally, after maybe a minute of silence apart from the clinking of wooden counters. 

 

“He was...well, I don’t know what to call him. It was the 90’s. People were scared. We never really labelled. Anyway, we were...us, for A year. We were — well, not happy— But violent delights have violent ends, you could say.”

 

“Romeo and Juliet.”

 

“I’m a sucker for tragedies,” he almost — he laughs, even though it sends pain up his chest. 

 

Yinsen’s eyes _gleam_ in the dark, Tony makes a prayer.

 

Who is he kidding? Nothing could save him now. 

 

* * *

  
  


He wonders if they’re still looking for him. Even if he is the military’s best supplier he’s abrasive and obnoxious and kinda annoying. 

 

He wonders if Ty is, if he even cares. If he even cares if he cares.

 

He knows Rhodey will be. And Pepper will be worried to death, pulling out her own hair having to deal with all the problems that will undoubtedly crop up in his...absence. 

 

He hopes he makes it home. It's the first time he’s _really_ wanted to live in a long time. 

 

So he does. It's a feat of...him. 

 

* * *

 

 

They whisper about him again, of course they do. The doomed man back from the desert with a star in his chest. 

 

Only the devil could survive that, right?

 

He almost laughs. The devil boy is back. Only this time? This time he’s stronger. This time, it's _his_ choice to become that, for people to run when they see him. 

 

This time, he’s not the devil, he’s the saviour, the light instead of the dark.

 

He’s Iron-Man. 


End file.
